It'd be a sin to be with you
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: What if Ritsuko was visited by a ghost of the future to keep her from fulfilling the present?


Creation began on 01-05-10

Creation ended on 09-01-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

It'd be a sin to be with you

A/N: Another inspirational work of creativity spawned by the manga. What could've been for the scientific faux-blond.

GASP! Ritsuko Akagi had woken up again from the nightmare that came from watching her mother commit suicide after killing the girl. It was the fifth one in a week after Naoko Akagi died. Her funeral was tomorrow, and her daughter had to be up early to attend it, even though that was the last thing she wanted at the moment. She had seen a little get strangled to 'death', a woman jump off a bridge and shatter her internal organs on her greatest achievement: A supercomputer with a living brain split between three A.I. Systems, and now she was having nightmares relating to that day.

_This is too much,_ she thought, getting out of bed. _Why'd she really do it?_

Sitting in her kitchen, she prepared herself a cup of coffee, but didn't so much as take a sip from it. She could already imagine the many people that knew her and of her that would be there: Admirers, friends, colleagues, her grandmother and herself. As she tried to sum it all up, the only dialogue she thought she heard from the two were, on Rei Ayanami's side: "Hag. I don't say it… He does. That's what he calls you… Hag… He always says it… Hag… That old hag is stubborn… That old hag is…useless. I'm telling you because it's sad for you not to know. I'm telling you…what he says about you." And, on her mother's side, while strangling her: "You! We have replacements for you if you die… I hope you know… Just like there is for me!"

Ritsuko was uncertain who the girl meant by 'he', but couldn't really say the name her first reaction summed up for her: Gendo Ikari. But if so, why did he do it? Why did he call her mother a hag? She wasn't that old. She was barely over forty-seven years old and still in her prime. Well, okay, not her prime, exactly, but still young-looking.

_The mother, the scientist and the woman,_ she thought, not referring to the MAGI, but to her own mother. _All I saw was a woman, twisted up by her emotions, committing suicide after accidentally killing someone that told her something she didn't want to accept as fact. I won't let that be myself. I won't be twisted by my emotions._

"It's hard to believe that when you barely let your sense of morality take a vote in that brain of yours," she heard a man say to her, raising her head and seeing somebody: He looked like he'd seen the ends of the world, his face completely worn by darkness, eyes as empty as a bin, and his clothing like those of a school boy.

Her first reaction was to call the police, but the only problem was that she only had one phone in the whole apartment…and he was right next to it.

"Who are you?" She questioned him.

"My name is not important," he responded her, sounding more like a broken teenager instead of a young man. "Only your future is important. What you'll do tomorrow will decide the rest of your life. Whatever you do, don't make the wrong choice."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just…don't make the wrong choice, please." Then he disappeared, like he was never there, his face expressing pain and anguish.

-x-

The rain made things too sad. Why couldn't the weatherman be right about there not being any rain at all? When nearly everybody else left the cemetery, Ritsuko found things were quiet now. Too quiet. Things were always quiet in a cemetery. Nobody ever bothers the dead much of the time.

_I hope she finds some form of peace on the other side,_ she thought, staring at the tombstone that bore her mother's name. _I won't let the me that's a woman control me. I shall cast that part of my life aside._

Turning to walk away, she felt somebody place a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see who it was, only to find Gendo, looking like he'd suffered from something terrible.

"You're the only one who can support me now that Naoko's gone," he told her. "Help me…just as your mother did. Help me…please."

Ritsuko felt like time had paused in front of her, recalling the previous encounter from last night with the guy that now reminded her of one obvious thing: The broken teenager…looked like a hopeless, softer version of Gendo himself! His own son, Shinji, from a distant future that had probably gone very wrong for everyone.

"_Just…don't make the wrong choice, please," _his words echoed in her mind, causing her to pull away from Gendo, taking said words to heart.

"I can't," she told him, still backing away. "This isn't right. My mom just died and was just buried…and I don't even know who you are."

Before even listening to him, she turned to run away, back to the safety of her apartment, and away from Gendo's plea for help.

-x-

It had been three days now, since that day the funeral came. Ritsuko, trying to put her life in order, felt that she couldn't stay in Tokyo-3 any longer. Not with Gendo around, possibly requesting for her to help him, still.

_It's just not right,_ she thought, lounging around her living room. _That kid was his son. What could've happen to have made him like that? Nothing good, that's for sure. I gotta get outta here._

RING-RING! The phone rung, but she didn't answer it. The caller was unidentified, and she made it a point to never take unidentified phone calls. Whoever it was either had the wrong number, was hiding their identity, or was prank caller calling a person.

"_What you'll do will decide the rest of your life," _his words echoed in her mind again.

_Is this how the rest of my life has been decided: I'm simply wasting away here? _She wondered.

Grabbing her phone, she dialed up her grandmother to see how she was doing at her house. It turned out that Chidori Akagi was very depressed over her daughter's death, pondering the questions of why she had to commit suicide and why when she was still alive.

"_I'd be damned if you were to die before I do, Naoko," _she had once said to her.

Ritsuko guessed that she was half-right: She was damned because her mother died before her grandmother could.

"…How are you doing?" Chidori asked her granddaughter.

"Me? Oh, I'm just dandy," Ritsuko told her. "In fact, I've been considering traveling to ease my mind."

"Like a vacation?"

"Yeah, a working vacation, actually." Ritsuko had no idea if such an idea was actually good for her or bad, but it sounded better than what she was really doing at the moment. "A lot has happened since the Second Impact. I should probably explore the changes the world has gone through."

When their conversation ceased, Ritsuko actually started feeling better about her last three days. She felt rejuvenated or something.

-x-

"…I take it that Akagi's daughter will not be joining us?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki asked Gendo, once he discovered that the faux-blond woman had left Japan.

"She'll come back," he told him.

"What makes you believe she'll come and work for NERV?"

"Surpassing her mother is her motivation."

-x-

Unfortunately, it was nothing but an empty promise, as Gendo soon found out. For Ritsuko Akagi had spent three years abroad in the States. Then eight months in China…and finally settled down back in Japan, but at a teaching position at some school in Nagoya. This meant that NERV would need to find another scientific mind to handle the MAGI.

A/N: Not what I had initially anticipated on writing when I started, but my creativity became stale after wanting to complete this.


End file.
